


Something Just Like This

by xoxoVenomousVenus



Category: Sense8 (TV)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, I just had a lot of feelings and needed some closure, and mun ofc, i wrote this at 2 in the morning, kind of?? idk??, the cluster is mentioned but it's mostly about sun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-05-20 17:23:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14898821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xoxoVenomousVenus/pseuds/xoxoVenomousVenus
Summary: Sun Bak was born alone. Sun grew up surrounded by people, her little family, the staff of her house, her mother's doctors, her father’s work colleagues, peers, teachers, the list never seems to end. Sun grew up surrounded by people, but she lived as she was born, alone.





	Something Just Like This

 

Sun Bak was born alone. Sun grew up surrounded by people, her little family, the staff of her house, her mother's doctors, her father’s work colleagues, peers, teachers, the list never seems to end. Sun grew up surrounded by people, but she lived as she was born, alone.

 

* * *

 

Joong-ki is born when she is four, too young to properly remember a time when her brother hadn’t been a part of her life. As far as she’s concerned, he’s always been there. A weighing presence on her mind, a responsibility.

Sun does not remember the first time her mother set him in her arms, her precious baby brother. She’ll never remember his tiny fists curling around her fingers, the way he gurgled a laugh whenever she made faces at him. She won’t remember the times that she would ask her father if they could check on him, as he slept, just to make sure. She doesn’t remember Joong-ki, the infant.

What Sun does remember is chasing her toddler brother up and down the hallways while her father is at work, both of them are smiling, laughing even. Sun remembers when Joong-ki would insist that his blanket accompanied him _everywhere_ , how he couldn’t be without it. She remembers the way he would clutch onto her hand whenever he had to walk downstairs, because he wasn’t very good at that, and didn’t want to fall.

One of her most vivid memories from childhood is of her and Joong-ki, playing together in this little patch of grass next to the gazebo, as her mother gazed on. Joong-ki wanted to be a prince, he’d even tied a red handkerchief around his neck to be his cape, and if he was a prince than his sister must be a princess. They fought make-believe monsters together, and Sun tried to show him some of the moves she’d learned in her new martial arts class. He didn’t take to it but was content to brandish a stick at the air while she did them.

It’s a good memory, a happy one.

Sun does, in fact, remember Joong-ki, her little brother. She had loved him, back then. Truly. Perhaps there was some resentment, building in her tiny body, over the way their father doted on him so much more than he ever had her, but it was okay. She loved Joong-ki, for his sake, she didn’t mind feeling just a little more alone than before.

 

* * *

 

She’s seven years old the very first time she makes a friend. School is alright enough, as far as Sun is concerned. She is not a talkative child and struggles to connect much with her peer group, so she mostly eats her lunches by herself and doesn’t beg her parents for anyone’s company. But she likes to learn, likes having her own books, she likes getting to leave every day, just like her father. It makes her feel grown-up, and that’s nice.

It’s not that she’s isolated at school, because she really doesn't think that’s the case. None of the other kids bully her, she’s never heard a mean thing directed at her, but she’s not exactly included either. It’s a medium that Sun is content with, and the idea that school will always be like that doesn’t bother her. Sometimes, she thinks it’d be fun to have more friends, but those thoughts tend to be fleeting.

Loneliness is a lot like a seed, it takes time to grow into something worth noticing.

Sun comes to school one day, believing it to be like any other. She’s early, because she’s _always_ early, and she goes about her routine of preparing for the school day ahead. All the teachers she’s ever had have taught her there is no greater advantage than that of dedication. Other children start filtering in, but Sun pays them little mind.

It’s only when class begins that she snaps to attention, and watches with a flickering curiosity as a new girl stands beside her teacher. The girl isn’t especially shy, or confident, or anything particularly notable at all. She introduces herself as Jae Eun, takes a seat, and that seems to be that.

Until Sun gets into her Taekwondo class, and Jae Eun is _there_ too.

It might have been easier to ignore had there not been so few girls in any fighting classes, let alone Sun’s. Naturally, the two of them are paired together time and time again. Sun is frustrated at first, she is so much better than Jae Eun that beating her isn’t a lesson as much as it is practice in repetition. For the first time, Sun doesn’t feel that she is improving, even though she’s winning.

Jae Eun, however, she _is_ improving. No matter how many times Sun throws her on the mat, Jae Eun gets back up. Eventually, with Sun’s brand new arrogantly bored style, she’s the one on the mat and Jae Eun is the winner. That moment, with the wind knocked out of her little lungs, is a big moment for so many reasons.

The first being Sun vows that she will never underestimate an opponent like that again because skill doesn’t matter if you’re not using it. The second though, is Jae Eun becomes the first person her age that Sun has ever felt real respect for.

After that, the two of them form an actual friendship. It’s new for Sun, and it’s exciting. She eats lunch with Jae Eun every single day, and when the two of them spar, she actively tries to help her friend. Sun convinces her parents to let her go out with Jae Eun and her family for dinner one night, and it’s so much fun Sun smiles for days. It almost seems like nothing that good can last, and it doesn’t.

Jae Eun moves away, seemingly just as suddenly as she’d moved in, and it’s fine. Sun is fine. She starts fighting with the boys again, and if she’s a little more aggressive than she was before, no one says anything about it.

Sun doesn’t make more friends like Jae Eun though, not for a very, very long time.

 

* * *

 

Mi-Cha Bak is defeated by cancer at thirty-two. Sun is nine years old and feels more alone than she ever has.

 

* * *

 

Sun stops losing fights. She fights so much that the faces all blur together, trains until her body aches more than it doesn’t, and she stops losing. Eventually, no one has brought her to the mat in years, all her trainers begin to look past her gender in favor of her record. Sun finally meets Chung-Ho, an older man who treats her like a real fighter from the very start, and under his guidance, she wins first place in every tournament she enters, and her father still isn’t proud of her.

 

* * *

 

Twenty-three years old with a position in her father’s company, her very own apartment and the beginnings of a realization. The seed of loneliness has finally seemed to grow into something noticeable, and it aches more than her body ever has.

Sun tries to fend it off. She works hard, puts in more hours than anyone else at her level. She goes with the men that catch her eye to love motels, even if she doesn’t see them more than a handful of times afterward. She starts fighting again, joining the rough dirty underground circuits. Where the rules aren’t as enforced and no one is keeping track of points. All of these things sooth her pains, but none of them cure it.

She’s beginning to believe that no cure exists, at least none she’s willing to pursue and that this is simply to be a new pain to get used to. Like missing her mother, like wishing her father recognized her, like wanting to shed the burden her duties have become. It’s then, as she’s on the cusp of acceptance, that Sun happens to be walking past a pet store.

The bright colors catch her attention, only for a moment, but a moment is enough. She does not go into that store, but later that night she searches dogs online, and two days later she’s bringing home a puppy that she’s named Jindo.

At first, Sun is baffled by her own impulsivity. She’s never really had a pet before, the most she’d ever done was feed a couple of stray cats outside her university dorm. Yet here she is, sitting in her living room playing with a puppy.

Dogs require a lot of maintenance, a lot of time that Sun isn’t sure how she’s going to get. Jindo nips playfully at her pants leg, and she feels out of her depth. It isn’t until the next day when she comes home from work, and Jindo comes running towards the door barking excitedly that Sun understands why she really got him.

Sun loves Jindo in a way she’s never allowed herself to love anything else, and her love for Jindo never betrays her. Not even once.

 

* * *

 

The awakening of the cluster is strange, for an uncountable number of reasons, but perhaps the biggest is, she’s _never_ alone.

For a woman who’s built her life around solitude, to say it takes some getting used to is an understatement. But the adjustment isn’t a bad one. These are all people she would have never chosen to let into her life, but they’re there and she wouldn’t rid herself of a single one. Twenty-seven years old, and this is a first.

It certainly makes her time in prison, a place she truly never expected to find herself, easier. They cannot punish her the way they think they can. Because she doesn’t need windows to see the sky, to breath in fresh air. She doesn’t need to be allowed out to feel the sun on her skin, grass under her feet.

But more than this new, unfound and beautiful thing she has with seven other people all around the world, she meets women she is able to call friends. It’s been so long since she’s been able to do that. Even with the circumstances being so dire, she can’t help but feel grateful for that.

In fact, there are so many experiences she has while in prison that she feels grateful for. It’s almost enough to make her not regret ending up here in the first place.

Prison should have been the most solitary experience of her life, but in fact, it was the most connected she’d ever felt.

 

* * *

 

Joong-ki, her precious baby brother murders their father, tries to assassinate her, publicly slanders her, looks her in the eyes and _lies_ to her. She thinks of him as a child, a red handkerchief around his neck, and she thinks of innocence. Underneath the volcanic rage that consumes her, buried so deep Sun hardly has the mind to notice it, is more.

After the rage fades away, when her brother lying at her feet beaten and terrified, all Sun is left with is what remains. There’s guilt, guilt that she’d let her brother become this in the first place when he’d been spoiled, but a good-natured child. There’s disappointment, in him, in herself, in their father, their mother even. More than anything though, there’s grief. For the reality that the laughing child she’d once known is dead, and she’ll never be able to love this Joong-ki.

The last of the family she was born to dies that day, and it’s a chilling feeling. She may have her cluster, but the void in her heart becomes too deep for them to fill completely. Another loneliness she must learn to live with.

 

* * *

 

Detective Mun makes her feel things. Yes, things. Because while he certainly inspires lust in her, there’s something _more_ as well.

He’s charming, confident, charismatic and Sun doesn’t really have a type, but if she did, it might be something along those lines. But there’s so much _more_ to him. She doesn’t know if she’s ever met anyone that’s so earnest, so understanding and so very dedicated. Detective Mun could very well live an easy enough life. Instead, he throws himself into doing the right thing, not the easy one.

Sun doesn’t give him her respect, he snatches it away from her. In her trainers home, at the cemetery, at the gala. She doesn’t have much of a choice in respecting him, or it seems, in wanting him.

When Sun calls him, she leaves the option for him to track her down on purpose, keeps the phone in her pocket. It doesn’t feel like a risk, BPO doesn’t know her, and they won’t be tracking the phone of some South Korean officer. Sun doesn’t think he’ll actually come, it’d be ridiculous to believe he’d run all the way to Paris just to find her. He’s got a job, responsibilities, and even if he didn’t he’s still recovering. But there’s something about the possibility, that he _could_ come to find her, that makes her feel giddy. It’s something to get her through the hard days, and lately, there are so many of those.

Except he does come.

It’s exhilarating, the way he looks at her is exhilarating, hearing his voice is exhilarating, Kwon-Ho Mun is entirely exhilarating. They’ve got Wolfgang back, Detective Mun is here and he’s kissing her, and for a small moment in time Sun lets herself be happy.

That happiness dies down when she realizes that he’s _here_. That she has no actual plan for any of this with him involved, and this is all so new and confusing and her situation isn’t about to make things any easier. It’s hard on the couples that already exist, the ones that are in love and have been for so long. But he insists that he’s staying, and it’s the softness in her heart that doesn’t argue with him.

So she brings him back with her, tries her best to prepare him for meeting everyone else, and is not especially surprised, but definitely impressed, when he handles all the craziness of her cluster and their assorted guests with ease.

Later, she does her best to explain everything to him. It’s difficult, she knew it would be, to be so honest. His expression is unchanging, and Sun can feel the likelihood of him leaving growing with every word but she keeps going. If he is going to stay, he simply can’t be in the dark.

When she’s finished, there’s silence in the air. Along with her nerves, it suffocates her. Rejection feels inevitable, and she can only hope that she can keep it together enough that everyone else doesn’t look upon her with pity. At last, he parts his lips and she braces herself.

“I knew you were special, Ms. Bak. Could tell the moment I met you,” there’s something about the way he addresses her, making her name sound like a pet name that eases the knot in her chest. He carries on, “I followed you to Paris, and I’ll follow you wherever else you go if you let me.”

Sun believes him, and that bone-deep, lifelong longing living inside her soul fades that much more.

 

* * *

 

 

They did it. They won the war. She’s used to victory, but this one feels amplified. Sun doesn’t know what comes after this if there will end up being another war, or ten, or twenty or none, but in this moment she feels as though she’ll win them all.

 

* * *

 

Together, she and the detective return to Seoul. It’s after another week of lounging and celebrating in Europe, but he’s arranged for her to meet with a court and is convinced that it’ll go well. Sun’s never been one to shy away from confronting her demons, and Seoul is her home, she doesn’t want to run away from it.

When they’re in the baggage claim, he hands her bags to her, without offering to carry them for her, and Sun likes this man so very much that for a second she feels she’ll burst. Seamlessly, he gives her something she’s been fighting for every second of her life. Respect.  

They go straight from the airport to the meeting, if you can call it that, and when they walk out free of handcuffs, Mun looks so smug she isn’t sure if she wants to hit him or kiss him. Just this once, she opts for the second. Quick as can be, she presses her lips to his cheeks and pretends like she can’t see the smugness amplifying by the second.

Impulsively, she says, “Do you want to meet my family?”

His dark eyes widen, confusion taking over the self-satisfied look completely. It’s so cute that she can’t help but giggle at him, “I mean my dog.”

It might have been more fun to drag him to her trainer, Chung-Ho’s, house and let him figure out what she meant for himself, but she’s too soft, too affectionate right now for mischief. Seeing his face clear, and his eyes light up is worth it. “Yes.” he answers eagerly, “I would like to meet your family.”

Jindo takes to him easily, he’s always been such a friendly dog that it’s really no surprise to Sun. The detective, on the other hand, looks so ecstatic when Jindo licks at his hands and wrists that Sun just beams at the two of them.

While they continue to bond, Sun separates herself, giving them space without her. This is time she spends catching up with Chung-Ho, hugging him tightly and thanking him for everything he’s done for her. She doesn’t cry, but it’s a close thing. Chung-Ho is the very first person that ever supported her so faithfully, and she worries she’ll never be able to repay his kindness.

An hour goes by, and Sun is clipping a leash to Jindo’s collar and she and Detective Mun take him for a walk in a nearby park. She’s missed her dog so much, missed Seoul, missed being able to do anything without looking over her shoulder.

They took a frisbee with them, and Sun is happy to know that even though Jindo is older, he still plays as though not a day has passed. She watches, chest overflowing with fondness, as Jindo and Mun wrestle playfully over the frisbee.  

She thinks about taking him to her parents' graves, officially. It doesn’t feel right though. Sun has so many feelings about them, conflicting confusing feelings. Someday, she’ll do it, but right now she wants to horde as much of this joy as she possibly can, let nothing taint it.

They spend the entire day with Jindo, and it _might_ just be the single best day of her life.

 

* * *

 

They attend Nomi and Amanita’s wedding, in person, together. It’s such a beautiful, wonderful night that even Sun’s cynicism can’t dampen her experience. Those two love each other as much as any two people are capable of, and when she’s dancing with her Detective she thinks she can understand how that starts.

 

* * *

 

Work is a subject that Sun hadn’t had much time, if any, to think about. Her father’s company’s name has been dragged through scandal after scandal and has gone up in flames so spectacularly it’s incredible, in a way.

So with everything over, her crimes dismissed and her name dragged through the mud, Sun is hit with the realization that she doesn’t actually know _what_ to do. The first week she spends settling into things, Chung-Ho opens his home to her and she does what she can to help him.

Detective Mun goes back to being just that, a detective. His vacation days are over, and he doesn’t seem disappointed in the least. Sun knows how much he loves his job. Will, who misses police work so much it feels like a stab wound, is always so excited to talk about Mun’s cases with him. Those conversations are nice, despite the subject matter, Sun enjoys them.

Week three, she goes with Chung-Ho to a fight. It feels like she’s in a dream of a past life, as she steps into the ring. Her opponent is too new to remember her, and she’s too used to fighting for her life to take it easy on him. When she wins, the victory is a little hollow.

Week four, after a lot of deliberation and hard discussions, Sun takes all the power she has left at her father’s company to begin dismantling it. She may have been gone for years, but Joong-Ki ran it so far into the ground even aside from the scandals, that it’s not nearly as hard as it should have been.

Most of the qualified businessmen have fled to better companies, or are in the process of doing so. What’s left are either people so desperate to be in power, they don’t care if what they’re in charge of a burning building or people who are too riddled with incompetence or corruption to get another job.

Sorting everything out is so time-consuming that Sun comes so close to falling into the work completely. Before, she knows she would have. As it is, it seems that even without facing life or death situations, her cluster keeps her grounded. Lito visits, bursting with energy and excitement as they talk about his film, and she helps him in shooting the darker scenes. Riley mothers her, making sure she sleeps and eats well. Kala offers advice from Rajan, Nomi runs _extensive_ background checks when Sun needs an upper hand against certain people, and so on.

It helps, also, that Detective Mun shows up in her room every couple of days to distract her. Which, as sexual as it sounds, is rarely so. Mostly he brings food, his laptop and the two of them watch movies and talk. Sometimes he’ll come earlier in the day and they’ll spar.

Bak Enterprises has officially dissolved by week nine. Perhaps in another life, this would cause Sun grief, but as it is, she feels nothing but the need to celebrate. Mun takes her out for drinks, and the two of them end up stumbling back to his apartment, pulling at each other's clothes.

Taking what is left of her fallen family legacy, Sun starts a new company. It launches officially in week fifteen. She is careful to keep her name out of it as much as she can, not wanting this new thing to be any more soiled by her past than it absolutely must be. She calls it Jindo Industries and is able to secure about twenty percent of the dealings that Bak Enterprises left behind. It’s not a lot, but it is enough.

Week twenty, Sun finds herself an apartment. It’s small, in an edgy part of the city, and her neighbors are loud. It’s cheap though, and she’s in too risky of a situation to justify spending a lot of money on rent.

Sun moves what few possessions she has left out of Chung-Ho’s home, he’s been so kind to her that she tears up a little when she’s driving away. She promises him that she and Jindo will visit often.

Detective Mun helps her buy the necessary furniture and helps her build it. They bicker with each other during the process, assembling a dresser is never _fun_ , but Sun is smiling more than she isn’t and when everything is finished they test just how well they built the bed frame.

During the chaos of the last two years, Sun had lived day by day. In prison, where people would fantasize about what their lives would be like when they got out, Sun had been preoccupied. Because of her cluster, she had very real, very present problems that took her attention. Any time that she had to herself, she was trying to figure out how she would get back at her brother. She wasn’t thinking past that.

Here she was, though. Past all of that.

If she had thought about what her life would be like, Sun doesn’t think she’d have imagined this. Leading her own blossoming company, living in a run-down apartment, falling in love with a man that truly knows her and still treats her better than she’d ever hoped for. Sun doesn’t think she’d have imagined herself so happy.

 

* * *

 

Even though there was never a specific conversation in which either of them decided they were dating, Sun knows that Detective Mun is her boyfriend. They spend most of their free time together, they go out on dates, neither of them is seeing anyone else. Sun has never had a steady relationship before, but she finds that it’s an easy thing to slip into. Or at least, it’s easy with Mun.

He introduces her to his friends, and she watches them watch her. It’s an interesting beginning, as they don’t seem surprised by her. She assumes that he’s told them all he was seeing someone, but some part of her expected them to expect someone more feminine. Instead, his friends greet her politely and include her in their conversation. It goes better than she thought it would, and the only time his friends do seem confused is when they hear the way they address each other.

“Ms. Bak will drink you under the table,” Mun warns, as his friends are challenging one another, and including her in that challenge. She isn’t sure if he’s really that confident in her, if his friends seriously cannot hold their liquor,  or if he’s exaggerating for the sake of humor.

Playfully, she retorts back, “Just because I can outdrink you, detective, doesn’t mean I can outdrink anyone.”

They’ve grown so close it might seem silly to still be so formal addressing one another, but at this point, the terms are more endearments than anything else and letting go of them would feel like letting go of a part of their relationship.

Plus, Sun isn’t ready to give up the reaction he has when she _does_ call him Kwon-Ho. In the bed ( or the kitchen counter, or the shower, or his desk at work that one time, or, or, or ) his pupils blow out _so_ very wide, and his grip gets tighter, his hips more desperate and the _sounds_ that come from his lips… it’s intoxicating. But sometimes, she’ll use it to emphasize her point, to catch his attention, to be cute, to throw him off guard, etc. The point is, his name has power, and she likes that.

Her name has power as well, and she has a feeling that he likes it just as much.

So let his friends scrunch their brows at that, she doesn’t mind. Every couple has their quirks, and this one isn’t worth changing.

 

* * *

 

Living together wasn’t ever part of the plan, they’d never discussed it, but soon it seemed hard to deny that’s exactly what they were doing. Sun had all but migrated into his apartment. It wasn’t very big, but it was still better than hers.

Really, with all that was going on, him taking on more difficult cases and her clawing out space for her company to grow, it took Sun awhile to realize what was happening. It wasn’t until Jindo jumped up onto the bed one morning, whining at _Mun_ to take him out, that Sun saw all the pieces.

She had more clothes in his closet than she had in her dresser, there were two toothbrushes in his bathroom, Jindo’s favorite dog bed was laying in the corner of his living room, and Sun had washed the dishes here five nights a week for the past couple of months. It was laughable that she hadn’t realized it sooner, and Lito was definitely laughing at her.

Part of her, a part that sounds suspiciously like Will, encourages her to bring it up, to talk about it. She knows that she has to, eventually, because unlike the silent agreement of their relationship, this is more serious. Sun puts it off though, deciding that it can wait until something comes up that instigates the conversation.

Four days later, it’s not her that brings it up in the end. She shouldn’t be surprised, but she is. Detective Mun speaks through actions far more than he does words, but they’re sitting together on his couch half-watching some drama when he says, “I have a friend coming from Busan, he’ll be here for a few months.”

Sun hums, not expecting this to lead to much of a conversation. “When will he get here?”

“Next week.” he answers, and continues fearlessly, “He can’t find a place to stay though, not for as long as he’ll be here. A hotel for months isn’t affordable. I was thinking he could stay at your apartment. He can afford the rent, and the lease will be up just about the time that he has to leave. I trust him to take care of the place, and that way you could move in here full time.”

Sun turns her head to look at Mun. He’s already staring down at her, his lips curled up in this small, confident smile. There’s nothing nervous in his eyes like he already knows what her answer will be. He’s not oblivious of the commitment this means, she knows that. He’s just not scared of taking that kind of step with her. Sun feels a lot of things all at once, all kinds of words build up in her throat and she says none of them, just matches his smile and nods, “We can move whatever he doesn’t want when he sees the place.”

He gives her a key that night, and Sun feels it reverberate through her bones. After all this time, she’s **_home_ **.

**Author's Note:**

> For the most part, I assumed the ages I used in this fic. Sense8 doesn't exactly have a clear, canon timeline. But! I hope you enjoyed this!


End file.
